Method of detecting and tracking groups of people

Active Publication Date: 2010-03-30
TWITTER INC
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]In a preferred implementation of the invention, retail managers may use such information about groups to help them manage customer traffic patterns, queue lengths, and waiting times. For example, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction may be improved when a manager opens up an addition

Problems solved by technology

However, these investigators have not addressed the issue of detecting and locating people as they move as a group.
The ability to visually detect and track groups of people and their activi

Method used

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  • Method of detecting and tracking groups of people
  • Method of detecting and tracking groups of people
  • Method of detecting and tracking groups of people

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Embodiment Construction

[0021]In preferred implementations of the invention, 1) individuals are detected through a two part process involving a) “silhouette detection”, i.e., identifying those pixels in a recorded camera frame corresponding to people and other moving objects and b) resolving individuals from these silhouettes, 2) individuals are then tracked, and 3) groups of individuals are then detected. Preferred embodiments of the invention are directed to detecting and tracking groups of socially interrelated individuals, e.g., people who have some familiarity with each other and have congregated for some purpose such as shopping, touring a museum, or a political fund raiser. A group may be a clique, a family unit, or a group of friends, among other possibilities.

[0022]One system for implementing the invention is shown in FIG. 1, in which a (one or more) camera 20 collects images from an area 24 where a number of individuals 28 are located. Output from the camera 20 is directed into a computer 30 wher...

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Abstract

A computer-interfaced camera system identifies and tracks groups of socially interrelated people. The system can be used, for example, to track people as they wait in a checkout line or at a service counter. In a preferred implementation, each recorded camera frame is segmented into foreground regions containing several people. The foreground regions are further segmented into individuals using temporal segmentation analysis. Once an individual person is detected, an appearance model based on color and edge density in conjunction with a mean-shift tracker is used to recover the person's trajectory. Groups of people are determined by analyzing inter-person distances over time.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The invention is in the field of video surveillance, and more particularly, the invention relates to the ability to detect and track groups of people.BACKGROUND[0002]Recent advances in camera technology and increased processor power have enabled surveillance systems to monitor human activities in real-time. (See, for example, D. M. Gavrila, “The visual analysis of human movement: a survey”, Computer Vision and Image Understanding, vol. 73, pp. 82-98, 1999.) Surveillance cameras are commonly used in stores, hallways, and along streets for security applications such as crime-prevention or post-crime investigations. On the other hand, retail store managers are also interested in using cameras to extract business intelligence information. Retailers desire real-time information about customer traffic patterns, queue lengths, and check-out waiting times to improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. They are more interested in determining the number of s...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): H04N7/18G06K9/00G06K9/64G06T7/20
CPCG06K9/00362G06K9/00778G06K9/6212G06T7/2093G06T2207/30232G06T2207/30241G06T7/292G06V40/10G06V20/53G06V10/758
Inventor FLICKNER, MYRON D.HARITAOGLU, R. ISMAIL
Owner TWITTER INC
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